Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and Happy Holidays to All!

We are entering the very festive time of year of Christmas, New Year and important religious holidays for many over the course of next week. On behalf of the entire Eastern Massachusetts ARES staff, I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and a happy and festive holiday season to those celebrating important holidays that are coinciding with the Christmas season this year.

Eastern Massachusetts ARES continues to broaden its relationship with served agencies including the National Weather Service, the American Red Cross, the Salvation Army and local Emergency Management and ARES groups. We continue to have strong relations with the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency through the efforts of Tom Kinahan-N1CPE, Massachusetts State RACES Radio Officer and Mike Nielsen-W1MPN, Eastern Massachusetts ARRL Section Manager. MEMA continues to work closely with us concerning the governor’s comments made in mid-November and continued progress is being made to recognize the capabilities of Amateur Radio and the executive state level and as more progress is made, we will report that to all of you.

Eastern Massachusetts ARES was very active this year with our Emergency Communications Workshop where we did a basic class in April in Ipswich and an advanced class in August in Attleboro. Cape Cod ARES has developed a Technical Workshop that was run for the first time ever on Cape Cod and is a huge addition to the training offered by our section for emergency
communications. All of this is additive to the ARECC classes that the ARRL offers.

We are working and will implement in January after further testing an ARES Online Application system that will allow us to have a database of all ARES operators in the section. This is thanks to the incredible hard work and effort of Phil McNamara-N1XTB who has worked for several months to create the online form and database. Further details on this exciting development
will follow in January.

We had several small-scale, localized but highly visible ARES activations in the past year. Cape Cod ARES was active with shelter operations for the
Blizzard of 2005 and for the recent nor’easter which brought hurricane force wind gusts and power outages for several days to their region. Eastern Massachusetts ARES supported the Whitman Amateur Radio Club and the Taunton Emergency Management Agency for shelter and EOC operations for the Whittenton Pond Dam crisis. Those operations lasted several days and prompted the ARRL to contact myself and Mike as SEC and SM of the section to determine what preparations were taking place in that area. The operation went very well and exemplified ARES and RACES cooperation along with the use of ARESMAT to support long duration operations for a localized event. SEMARA ARES and Cape Cod ARES both provided critical support to the operation.

We had several successful exercises including the June Hurricane Exercise which involved the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida via VoIP, the
Operation Atlas Boston Logan Airport Drill also in June and our Power Outage drill in mid November. These exercises allowed us to put in practice much of what we learn in our workshops as well as public service events. We also reorganized and put into place our monthly Eastern Massachusetts ARES Net on the MMRA system on the RACES Net night, immediately following all the nets. While it can make for a long evening,. participation is strong as we’ve turned the RACES Net Night into an Emergency Communications Net night exemplifying the partnership ARES and RACES must have to be successful.

While we still have more work to do in creating depth in the ARES organization by recruitment and further training, the program remains very well organized and its a testament to the hard work and dedication of all of you as ARES members. On behalf of the Eastern Massachusetts ARES staff, we thank all of you for your support and wish you a Merry Christmas, Happy New
Year, and a happy and festive holiday season to those celebrating holidays that coincide with the Christmas season.

Below is a note of thanks for the holiday for all those who have contributed in the ARES-SKYWARN program in Eastern Massachusetts. This message was sent
out to the SKYWARN email list as well:

We are entering the very festive time of year of Christmas, New Year and important religious holidays for many over the course of next week. On behalf of the National Weather Service in Taunton, Massachusetts, it is time to take this opportunity to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and a happy and festive holiday season to those celebrating important holidays that are coinciding with the Christmas season this year.

We’ve seen an extremely high level of weather activity this year. With the powerful nor’easters that were seen from January through May of this year including the Blizzard of 2005, to the severe weather outbreaks that occurred in August and other points this summer, to the October floods to the powerful short lived nor’easter in early December that produced hurricane force winds on Cape Cod and 7-17″ of snow across interior portions of Southern New England, the NWS Taunton SKYWARN program with the associated ARES and SKYWARN teams and non-Amateur Radio SKYWARN Spotters across the NWS Taunton County Warning Area have provided an invaluable service. Many areas lack the surface observations to help produce a forecast that will protect life and property. The National Weather Service in Taunton is blessed with all of you, highly trained SKYWARN Spotters and highly trained Amateur Radio SKYWARN Spotters who react and provide critical ground truth reports to protect life and property. Whether it is a severe thunderstorm in the summer, or a nor’easter in the winter, or spring and fall flooding and everything in between, all of you are there, and for that, the National Weather Service is thankful for your efforts.

We are looking forward to another year of working with all of you. We are planning a more extensive SKYWARN training plan for 2006 than 2005 and we will continue to work to expand the technologies in getting data into NWS through Amateur Radio and other means. We don’t know how active the 2006 year will be but we know that regardless of how active the next year will
be, all of you will be there to support the primary mission of SKYWARN and the National Weather Service to help protect life and property with precise ground truth reports of what is happening when severe weather strikes regardless of season.

I look forward to working with all of you through the remainder of 2005 and into 2006. Once again, I would like to wish each and everyone of you Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and a happy and festive holiday season to those celebrating other important religious holidays this week. Take care and all the best to everyone of you!